Funny Thing About Minnesota...: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Twin Cities Comedy Scene

Funny Thing About Minnesota...: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Twin Cities Comedy Scene

by Patrick Strait
Funny Thing About Minnesota...: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Twin Cities Comedy Scene

Funny Thing About Minnesota...: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Twin Cities Comedy Scene

by Patrick Strait

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Overview

"We'd do shows on Monday nights at this place and get maybe 10, 15, 20 people, tops," recalls Hansen. "So one week, Rodney Dangerfield is coming to town to perform at the Carlson Celebrity Ballroom, all week, beginning on Tuesday. On Monday afternoon, we decided to make a call to the club and see if we could get ahold of Rodney. They put us in touch with his PR people, and we said, 'Can you tell Rodney that we'd like to invite him to come out to see our show on Monday. We have a great comedy show nearby and we hope you can make it.' Rodney got the message, and he calls us back and says, ':I'm going to come to your show tonight.' We don’t want to have an empty room for this, so all of us call everyone we know and tell them Rodney Dangerfield is coming to the show. Sure enough, he showed up right on time, and the place was packed. Rodney sat right in the middle of the audience. That night, it was me, Alex, Jeff and Louie, and we each did 20 minutes. I went on last, and just as I'm wrapping up, I look at Rodney and he just quietly points at himself, as if to say he’d like to do some time. Of course I'm going to let him do whatever wants, so I say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, Rodney Dangerfield.' He comes up and does 45 minutes on our little stage. It was unreal. He signed every autograph he was asked for, he talked to the four of us as long as we wanted to talk. He was just a great guy."

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781681341873
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Publication date: 02/01/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 19 MB
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About the Author

Patrick Strait moved to Minneapolis in 2007, and a year later he began writing for City Pages, where he was (at that time) the only writer regularly covering local comedy, including profiles about up-and-coming comedians, unique events, major club shows, and start-up open-mic nights. He has served as the regular comedy-beat reporter for City Pages, The Growler, and Thrillist, writing more than fifty stories a year about all aspects of stand-up comedy in the Twin Cities. Beyond the major clubs (Acme, House of Comedy, Joke Joint), he covers trends such as the growth of and breakthrough of Black and other comedians of color, an increased focus on diversity, and the cooperative nature of the local comedy scene that has helped it to continue to grow and thrive. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two children.

Read an Excerpt

As the 1980s began, stand-up comedy was on fire. Nationally, names like George Carlin, Robin Williams, and Steve Martin were becoming regular fixtures on TV. Locally, Mickey Finn's was still pulling in consistently strong crowds, out-of-town comedians were coming to perform for Twin Cities audiences, and even comedy forefather Dudley Riggs was expanding his shows to include stand-up.

While the growth of stand-up comedy was great for fans and provided more opportunities for performers, things were still pretty hectic when it came to getting stage time. "Mickey Finn's was basically just Bill [Bauer] and Alex [Cole] by then, because Jeff [Gerbino] left for Los Angeles in 1980 or '81," recalls Scott Hansen. "At that point, it was just a drug den."

That's not to say that the quality of comedians or the quantity of fans at Mickey Finn's had dipped, but without Hansen or Gerbino to maintain order, things could get a little out of hand. "We called ourselves the Comedic Revolutionary Council," recalls Cole, "and we had handbills made up that we handed out all over Riverplace [in Minneapolis]. At that point we had moved the stage into the basement of Mickey Finn's, and we had people like Lizz Winstead and Sid Youngers working there quite a bit. The difference between how it was with Scott in charge and what it was like with us in charge was that Scott really didn't like pushing envelopes. Billy loved it, and I was always kind of a revolutionary-minded person. So the feeling at Mickey Finn's became, go up there and do whatever you want . . . as long as it gets a laugh."

Table of Contents

1 A Bar Called Mickey Finn's 1

2 The Original Five 21

3 Jeff Gerbino 29

4 Bill Bauer 37

5 Louie Anderson 45

6 Alex Cole r 55

7 Scott Hansen 63

8 Welcome to the Comedy Cabaret 71

9 Dudley Riggs Presents: The Minneapolis Comedy All-Stars 87

10 The Birth of the Comedy Gallery 99

11 The Arrival of Louis Lee 121

12 The Hansen Comedy Empire 131

13 Comedy Turmoil 141

14 Vices 157

15 A Woman's Place Is in the Spotlight 163

16 The Bubble Bursts 187

17 Aftermath and Legacy 195

Epilogue 205

Acknowledgments 207

Selected Bibliography 209

Index 211

About the Author 223

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